Commercial sites on the Internet (in particular on the World Wide Web) are known. Typically, Web sites where merchandise or services can be purchased consist of a static description of the goods or services being offered, the price at which such goods or services are being offered, and some type of order form for a customer to enter personal and payment information. Similarly, Web sites soliciting merchandise and services consist of a static description of the goods or services sought, the price at which such goods or services will be purchased at, and some type of order form for a seller to enter personal information.
Such sites are not well suited for the purchase of goods or services that are negotiable, including unique, surplus, high-volume or discontinued items, or negotiable services. The known commercial Web sites are interactive only to the extent that a customer is able to choose a particular item for purchase and to enter payment and shipment information. Such Web sites include so-called “auction” sites such as NetMarket.RTM. (www.netmarket.com), in which users may consecutively enter prices they are willing to pay for specific products, until a set deadline, thus bidding up the price. The product is then sold to the customer with the highest bid. Such “auction” Web sites do not allow the user to negotiate with the vendor, or vice versa. Consequently, there is no manner by which negotiation can take place between the seller and the customer.
Thus, there exists a need in the art for a dynamic and interactive computer-implemented system which is capable of purchasing, through a distributed network such as the Internet, goods and/or services that have negotiable prices.
The present disclosure provides for affording a market management framework. Category analysis is provided for a user specified project. Supplier analysis is performed for the user specified project. A strategy is then developed for determining the suppliers for the specified project based on the supplier analysis. Further, negotiations are managed between selected suppliers and the user.
In one aspect of the present invention, providing category analysis includes identifying a file including expenditure data relating to spent monies, extracting the expenditure data from the file, determining an independent and a dependent variable relating to the expenditure data, graphing the expenditure data based on the determined variables, and displaying conclusions based on the expenditure data.
In another aspect of the present invention, performing supplier analysis includes providing access to a database including supplier profile data, identifying supply chain relationships based on particular commodities and the supplier profile data, generating a report depicting the identified supply chain relationships, allowing users to create request for information for specified suppliers based on the generated report, and distributing the created request for information to the specified suppliers.
In yet another aspect of the present invention, developing a strategy for determining the suppliers includes allowing a user to dynamically create a request for quote document, grouping specific request for quote line items based on a request from the user, enabling the user to attach further data to the request for quote document, and distributing the request for quote document to specific suppliers.
In a further aspect of the present invention, managing negotiations includes allowing a user to post an electronic request for quote on a website, affording selected suppliers access to the request for quote on the website, supporting electronic negotiations between the user and a selected supplier, and facilitating post-negotiation analysis via a decision matrix.